


The Cipher and the Spy - Part V

by Saradi



Series: The Cipher and the Spy [5]
Category: Star Wars Legends: The Old Republic (Video Game)
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Regret, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-11
Updated: 2020-08-11
Packaged: 2021-03-06 08:54:11
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,045
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25846918
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Saradi/pseuds/Saradi
Relationships: Female Imperial Agent | Cipher Nine/Theron Shan
Series: The Cipher and the Spy [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1825405
Kudos: 2





	The Cipher and the Spy - Part V

SARADI

“Welcome back,” Keeper said. He motioned to an aide who brought us both cups of tea. 

We were sitting at a small conference table near the window in his office while a storm raged outside. Usual weather. Theron had said the reason the Sith were so grumpy all the time was the weather on Dromond Kass. Although it was disloyal, I thought it was pretty funny. 

….Theron said…. I mentally sighed.

“Thank you, sir,” I responded. 

“That didn’t exactly go as planned, but you did well.”

To be fair to me, it went precisely as planned. The part that didn’t go as planned was how I’d feel about it.

“It has been a long time since I ran into someone so incredibly resistant to my charms,” I said, making a face. “It was insulting. I had hoped that would be an easy way to get to Agent Shan, but some other tactic may have to be used in the future.”

“It wasn’t you, my girl.” Keeper says, patting my hand. “Our research tells us he’s got an implant system that allows him to ignore what you might choose to offer.

Keeper didn’t know that not only had Theron Shan _not_ ignored what I had to offer, he’d enjoyed it multiple times throughout the night. What I was never going to tell Keeper was that I had, too. Theron was, plainly speaking, wonderful. Gorgeous both dressed and un, thrillingly sexy and dominant... and…fun. That was it. Theron was fun. Something missing from my life for so long I had ceased to put a value on it.

“He stayed the night with you, though?” Keeper asked.

“We got drunk. I suggested he stay and not try to travel anywhere in that condition. He did. Actually, he passed out. We slept fully clothed on separate sides of the bed. Like I said, it was insulting. He was still out when I gathered my things and left.”

The same implants that allegedly kept Agent Shan from being tempted by me would also have kept him from getting drunk. Hopefully, Keeper wouldn’t come to that conclusion too soon. Hopefully, he wouldn’t realize that I was lying like a rug to him, either. Luckily, I'm a professional liar and he's honorable. It might not occur to him till later.

“You exfiltrated before they got too much from you. We did get a lot of information from their attempt to control you with conditioning.”  
  
“About that…” I started. He raised a hand.

“Not now.”

I nodded.

“I could see that this was not going to go as planned and got off of Nar Shaada as fast as I could. I headed to Tatooine to cover my trail, but the folder of information I’d taken from Shan when he was unconscious had a tracking device in it that I hadn’t detected. He followed me.”

No one was more surprised as I was when I ran into Theron in the warehouse in the middle of the smuggler camp in the Dune Sea. He followed me, and I’d only had about a three hour head start. I went to Tatooine because it had the largest Imperial presence that was closest to my location. I didn’t want to head straight back to Dromond Kaas. 

We startled each other so much that we had drawn down. Then neither of us knew how to get out of it.

He had followed me.

Not because I had a folder of secret documents…I didn’t. He’d followed _me_.

“Did you give Watcher Two the documents?”

I shook my head. “No, we had a skirmish and they were destroyed. The extraction team arrived right before he probably would have hurt me.” 

As if. He never would, I knew that now.

“Well, that’s lucky, then. We learned a few things about his capabilities, so the operation wasn’t a total loss.”

I nodded. Yes, yes we had.

"You told the extraction team not to capture him or harm him. That was surprising. He would have offered up a lot of useful intel."

I shook my head. "No. Those implants, remember? I thought it best to just cut my losses and get out of there. No reason to drag him here for weeks of questioning that would never get answers. He's good and I respect him. If the Dark Council wants someone to torture, they'll have to find him themselves."

There was a moment there, before I left the warehouse with the troopers, when he’d looked at me. He dropped his guard for maybe two seconds. He saw me. Not my cover, not my appearance..me. Who I really am, and he liked what he saw. If he had said not to go..to stay with him..I would have. But he didn’t.

I had neutralized him as an enemy, made him ineffective against me. Professionally, surgically. But what I hadn’t calculated was: He had also neutralized me. I will never hurt him or work to destroy anything he was doing. Not ever again.

“So complete your report, and take a day or two away. Nothing is urgent, and we’ll have something new for you then." He started walking out, then turned back. "What we were asking of you here is a viable strategy, and seduction can be a useful tool. But that's not how I choose to utilize you in the future. That's not something you will be asked to do again."  
  
“Thank you, sir.” I said, standing when he stood. He left the room.

I looked at my datapad.

“Just thinking of you.” I typed in a comm interface. Saradi, just stop, I said to myself. You aren't a schoolgirl. I wiped the message off the screen. Sighing, I began to enter the ‘facts’ of my recent operation into a report for Watcher Two.

\--

His holomail beeped. Unknown sender, coordinates in Imperial space. “…thinking of y..” then no more. 

Well, that was something. Because he hadn’t stopped thinking about her, either.

He took the datapad and hurled it as hard as he could into the ocean in front of him. Sitting back down on the beach chair, he took another bottle of Corellian whiskey out of the case next to him and put his feet back up on the footrest.


End file.
